Method and system for providing information to market participants about one or more power generating units based on thermal image data

1. A method for providing information to a market participant about a power generating unit, comprising the steps of: acquiring, by a thermal imaging camera, thermal data from one or more smokestacks associated with the power generating unit; recording an image of the acquired thermal data; transmitting the recorded image to a central processing facility; analyzing, by a computer, the recorded image by (a) defining a Region of Interest (ROI) consisting of a matrix of image pixels of a selected portion of the recorded image, (b) determining a center of the ROI, (c) computing a distance from a center of any pixel to the center of the ROI to establish a first weighting factor, (d) determining a standard deviation of all pixel intensities in the ROI, (e) computing an absolute difference between a pixel standard deviation and the standard deviation of all pixel intensities in the ROI to establish a second weighting factor, and (f) using the first weighting factor and the second weighting factor to compute a representative ROI intensity; using the computer to query a database of power generation data, retrieving data associated with the power generating unit from the database of power generation data, and then determining a current power output of the power generating unit based on the representative ROI intensity and the retrieved data; and communicating information about current power output of the power generating unit to the market participant.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , in which the thermal imaging camera is coupled to an optical arrangement for focusing on a selected smokestack of the one or more smokestacks.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , in which the recorded images are transmitted to the central processing facility in substantially real-time.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 , in which communicating information about the current power output of the power generating unit to the market participant is accomplished through export of the information to an Internet web site accessible by the market participant.